[Dtb-talk] NLS Digital Players

[Flint Million]

LOL, they had tapes with blank recorded-over spots? I'd assume they
kicked out that little notch on the tapes that prevents most units
from recording?... So that means either people were deliberately
defeating that, or had recorders which didn't have the mechanical
stopper on the record button that's hooked to that little hole in the
cassette.

In the US, many recording units were made that could record to NLS
format tapes (Handi-Cassette comes to mind). But it would have bee a
deliberate effort to record over an NLS book, due to this simple but
generally effective write protection scheme on old cassettes. (Yeah,
you can defeat it with a piece of Scotch tape, but again, that counts
as deliberate effort. lol)

Either way, I'm sure if one REALLY wanted to, one could erase a
cartridge, probably through some SCSI commands of some sort. (If
anyone remembers the Zip drive, you could write-protect the disk in
software, rather than a physical hardware switch. Something similar is
probably at work here.) But again, it'd require deliberate effort and
would not be done by accident by any random person, and either way it
sounds like they just dump and reload carts every time they come back
to the library anyway.

Mike, I also am an audiophile, and most of my ripped CD collection is
stored in FLAC on my computer, and then transcoded to something else
(MP3 or OGG or whatever) when I want to put it on to a portable
device. I won't settle for less than 192kbit MP3 or Q5 OGG. Still, CDs
serve mostly as a transient medium to transport content around. I
rarely ever touch a standard audio CD player anymore. lol

fm


On 2/15/10, Greg Kearney <gkearney at gmail.com> wrote:
> While the NLS does write protect the cartridges it is possible I guess to
> still erase them given the right kind of computer setup. We have yet to have
> anyone accidentally erase a cartridge and even if they were to do so it
> would impact only that user as the cartridges as assigned to a particular
> user and are erased and reloaded each time they come back to us.
>
> Gregory Kearney
> Manager - Accessible Media
> Association for the Blind of Western Australia
> 61 Kitchener Avenue, PO Box 101
> Victoria Park 6979, WA Australia
>
> Telephone: +61 (08) 9311 8202
> Telephone: +1 (307) 224-4022 (North America)
> Fax: +61 (08) 9361 8696
> Toll free: 1800 658 388 (Australia only)
> Email: gkearney at gmail.com
>
> On 16/02/2010, at 8:11 AM, Tim Gillett wrote:
>
>> Some of you have been talking about reloading thumbdrives with different
>> files
>> but as David Andrews reminded us, the NLS is not in that business.
>>
>> One of the benefits of providing a special player for clients is precisely
>> that
>> you can make it incapable of erasing / rewriting the cartridge's files.
>>
>> Here's a cautionary tale:
>>
>> Many years ago the Association For the Blind of
>> Western Australia in its infinite wisdom decided to stop supplying special
>> NLS type cassette tape players - or any tape players - to its clients.
>>
>> This move came back to bite them.
>> ABWA staff began to get complaints from clients of titles with whole
>> sections blank.
>> With the record capable cassette machines that clients were now forced to
>> use,
>> some clients were accidentally pressing the record button instead of play,
>>
>> and at random points through the title.
>>
>> ABWA had a problem on its hands, all of its own making, that it had never
>> anticipated.
>>
>> I assume that like the old analog players the new NLS players
>> will similarly be incapable of erasing/formatting cartridges,
>> thereby protecting all patrons from inadvertently mutilated titles!
>>
>>
>> Tim Gillett
>> Audio/Electronics Technician
>> Perth, Western Australia
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
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